Puerto Rico Is ‘Out of Options’ With $72 Billion Debt; Florida Health Info Hack
San Juan, Puerto Rico Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
Also: NYC city worker EZ-Pass investigation and Montana’s outsourced autopsies.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: The commonwealth’s $72 billion debt load has been mounting and the governor is “out of options,” one analyst told Bloomberg Business. A report from a group of former International Monetary Fund officials paints a dire situation:
“There is no U.S. precedent for anything of this scale and scope, and there is the added complication of extensive pledging of specific revenue streams to specific debts,” they wrote. “But difficult or not, the projections are clear that the issue can no longer be avoided.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, there are expectations that the government will soon run out of cash and that could mean a government shutdown, furloughs or other drastic measures. [Bloomberg Business; Wall Street Journal]
PENSACOLA, Florida: Escambia County employees were informed on Friday that some of their personal information and health records may have been compromised in a hack on medical software company last month. As the Pensacola News Journal reports, the county, located in the Florida panhandle, only learned of the hack on Friday. [Pensacola News Journal]
NEW YORK CITY, New York: More than 100 city workers will have to pay for their unauthorized use of their government-supplied EZ-Pass electronic tolling tags. As the New York Post reports, more than 100 workers at two psychiatric hospitals on Randalls Island—which is accessible only via toll bridge—were using EZ-Pass “freely for other jaunts” over the Triborough Bridge, which connects Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. In total, a state inspector general’s report found around $300,000 in inappropriate EZ-Pass use. [New York Post]
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico: Should New Mexico’s rarely used “three strikes” sentencing law be expanded to include new felony offenses? In the wake of a local police officer being killed in the line of duty, some state lawmakers think the “three strikes” law should be strengthened, though one state representative told the Albuquerque Journal he’s “trying not to do this as a knee-jerk reaction.” [Albuquerque Journal]
MISSOULA, Montana: Out in Big Sky Country, local authorities will be shipping bodies to Seattle and Rapid City, South Dakota, for autopsies in the coming weeks because the state’s two forensic medical examiners recently resigned. “It will be a minor inconvenience for those involved, but we are trying to make it as seamless and easy as we can,” Mike Milburn, deputy chief of staff in the Montana Attorney General’s Office, told the Missoulian newspaper. [Missoulian]
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